Sunrise Angkor Wat

It was a very early start today as we had opted to do the sunrise visit to Angkor Wat.  As our guide knew I wanted a photograph we arrived early and were second in the queue to wait for the gates to open.  It was a fairly long wait but once open we walked across the rather bouncy bridge across the moat towards the edge of the water where a tripod could be erected.  It was still dark as the small crowd of us set up our cameras the stars were very bright and some saw shooting stars.  Very slowly we began to make out some shapes in the distance as the outlines of trees and the Angkor Was temple came into view.  Bats were still darting across the water and some birdsong began to be heard. There was little cloud in the sky but just when we thought it was time to move on some clouds moved across and turned delightful shades of pink before our eyes.

Once it was fully light we headed around the side of the outer building which was by now lit in a lovely golden colour, and then made our way into the complex.  We were again impressed with the exact symmetry of the building and its lines of pillars, the fine indicate carvings and scale of the carvings.  We climbed to the very top temple where there are smaller courtyards and two areas where shrines surround a Buddha.  The views from here, see extra, looking out to the surrounding forest show just how remote this area would have been many years ago.  We continued our tour on the lower levels marvelling at a carving of battle scenes depicted along a very long wall. We crossed towards one of the libraries with very steep steps and then exited walking down a long tree lined road.

After breakfast we packed our suitcases and then wandered around the National Museum which houses many of the buddhas and other artefacts from the Angkor region and includes a room containing thousands of Buddhas of various sizes.

Late afternoon we flew to Phnom Penh.